The Hidden Truth: Most Self Driving Cars Still Require Almost Perfect Roads To Be Safe

You should take claims of self-driving cars being road-ready soon with a 50-pound bag of salt, not a grain.

While automakers, suppliers and ride providers such as Uber race to develop and deploy the technology, one aspect of self-driving cars is not being reported on much, if at all: The nation’s infrastructure is simply not ready for cars that can drive themselves 100 percent safely, 100 percent of the time.

As of now, there are no federal funds specifically committed to getting public roads prepared for self-driving cars. The $4 billion that President Barack Obama has proposed to spend over the next 10 years for autonomous driving doesn’t cover fixing the nation’s roads and infrastructure. It’s a proposed investment in “real-world pilot projects.”

vdiv - 8/31/2016 5:41:05 PM

+2 Boost

And if the roads are not safe for autonomous driving they are not safe for human driving either. So instead of just investigating the car makers perhaps the NHTSA should investigate the government entities that fail to maintain their road infrastructure. With such low interest rates, now is the time to invest in the infrastructure.